The present invention relates to an automatic bar code label applying apparatus to be suitably used for test tubes and blood sample tubes (hereinafter also referred to test tubes) containing blood, body fluid or some other fluid constituting the object of a screening operation, the label to be applied typically carrying data on the fluid to be screened in the form of characters and a bar code.
In the operation of examining a blood sample in a hospital, the sample is typically examined for a number of test items and the type (size) of the test tube for containing the sample may be selected depending on the test items. A large amount of data may have to be carried by the test tube in order to identify the subject of medical examination and such data may typically include the name and the sex of the subject, the status of inpatient or outpatient and the department in charge of the patient. Recently, efforts have been paid to computerize the operation of controlling the entire hospital by means of either an on-line system or an off-line system and the use of bar code labels carrying thereon characters and bar codes for test tubes is of course in line with such efforts.
While the use of bar code labels for test tubes is advantageous because they can simplify the post-examination management and the accounting system of the hospital but is accompanied by a cumbersome task of applying them to the respective test tubes on a one by one basis. Grave consequences may arise if they happen to be applied to wrong test tubes by careless mistake. In view of these circumstances, there is a demand for the technology of automatically applying bar code labels to test tubes.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide an automatic bar code label applying apparatus to be suitably used for test tubes.